Wooden Countertops

[ecf]

I'm apartment hunting in New York City and have come across a great place with a large kitchen (which is a definite must for a celiac and can be hard to come by in NYC), but the countertops are unvarnished wood. I've never cooked in a kitchen with wooden butcher block countertops, so have never considered whether or not gluten could work its way into them, but I imagine that previous tenants' flour/pasta/you name is engrained in the porous wood. Does anyone have experience with or thoughts about this?

[GlutenFreeManna]

I've heard you are supposed to get rid of wooden cutting boards when you go gluten free. I can't imagine that the counter tops would be safe. I would always be afraid to prepare food on the them if I lived there. If that place is your ONLY option I'm sure you could work around it by always preparing food on cutting boards placed on top of the counter tops. But I wouldn't choose that apartment, I'm just too paranoid about cc.

[kitgordon]

I would be very concerned about that. Could you have them varnished?

[tarnalberry]

or is it possible to sand them down and reseason them?

[i-geek]

or is it possible to sand them down and reseason them?

I would think this would be sufficient. We're looking into installing wooden countertops in our kitchen and this is the recommended treatment for removing stains, etc. As a precaution you'd probably want to put down wax paper or plastic wrap if you were going to be rolling out pie dough or something. I don't eat directly off of my counters or cut food directly on my counters, though, so it might be of more concern to someone who does.

[ecf]

Thanks, all. I think you're right, it seems too risky without having them sanded down. The landlord wasn't keen on doing that, so I took another place with granite countertops...phew.